The Welsh at War: The Grinding War: The Somme and Arras

By Steven John

The Welsh at War trilogy is the culmination of over twelve years of painstaking research by the author into the Welsh men and infantry units who fought in the Great War.These units included the four regular regiments the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, South Wales Borderers Welsh Regiment and Welsh Guards as well as the Territorial Monmouthshire Regiment, the Yeomanry regiments: the Denbighshire Hussars, Pembroke Yeomanry, Montgomeryshire Yeomanry, Glamorgan Yeomanry and Welsh Horse Yeomanry and their amalgamation into service battalions for the regular regiments during 1917.Welsh troops fought with great courage in every theater of the war the Western Front, Aden, China, Gallipoli, Egypt, India, Italy, Salonika and in Palestine and in addition to the casualties suffered during these campaigns, many men gained recognition for acts of gallantry.The three volumes, split chronologically, cover all of the major actions and incidents in which each of the Welsh infantry regiments took part, as well as stories of Welsh airmen, Welshmen shot at dawn, Welsh rugby players who fell, Welsh gallantry winners and the Welshmen who died in non-Welsh units, such as the Dominion forces and other units of the British armed forces.The Welsh at War records the gallant work of Welsh units and servicemen during the period between the arrival of the 38th (Welsh) Division in France during December 1915 until the aftermath of the Battle of Arras in the summer of 1917, covering: the campaigns in Mesopotamia, Salonika, Egypt and Palestine; the Battle of Jutland; the Somme offensive; the German Withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line; the Battle of Arras; the Battle of Messines Ridge; and the build up to the Third Battle of Ypres.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781526700339

Steven John

Steven John and his wife, an elementary school teacher, live in Los Angeles by way of Washington D.C. and New York, respectively. He splits his time between many things, most of which involve words. Three A.M. is his first novel.

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Introduction

Following the outbreak of the Great War on 4 August 1914, the allies had massively increased the size of their armed forces. By the time the New Year of 1916 dawned, the Canadians and Indians were well-established on the Western Front, the Australians and New Zealanders were in the process of being evacuated to Egypt prior to their move to the Western Front, the South Africans were preparing for their move to the Western Front, and the British army had expanded beyond all recognition.

Lord Kitchener, as Secretary of State for War, had overseen the expansion of the army by the creation of dozens of new divisions. In order to fill these divisions, each regiment had formed extra battalions and Britain was now a sea of khaki, with army camps set up along the length and breadth of these isles.

The Welsh contribution to the war effort thus far had been exemplary. Welsh units had helped stop the German advance on Paris during the early weeks of the war and had then done the same at Ypres by stopping the German drive towards the Channel ports through Flanders during the First Battle of Ypres. Welsh units had fought with some distinction during the Second Battle of Ypres and at Loos during 1915; but the conflict was still in the stalemate of trench warfare.

Recruitment at home had seen the formation of many extra battalions for the regular Welsh regiments – the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, South Wales Borderers and Welsh Regiment – while two wholly new regiments had been formed: the Welsh Horse Yeomanry and Welsh Guards. The Welsh Yeomanry regiments were in Norfolk readying for a move to the Middle East, while a reserve Welsh Division, the 68th (2nd Welsh) had been formed and was training in the area of Northampton and Bedford.

The New Year of 1916 saw Welsh infantry units either in action, ready for action or in training consisted of the following:

The Royal Welsh Fusiliers: thirty Regular, Territorial, Service, Reserve and Garrison battalions.

The South Wales Borderers: seventeen Regular, Territorial, Service, Reserve and Garrison battalions.

The Welsh Regiment: thirty-one Regular, Territorial, Service, Reserve and Garrison battalions.

The Welsh Guards: two battalions; one Regular, one Reserve.

The Montgomery Yeomanry: three battalions, all Territorial; two reserve.

The Pembroke Yeomanry: three battalions, all Territorial; two reserve.

The Glamorgan Yeomanry: three battalions, all Territorial; two reserve.

The Denbighshire Hussars: three battalions, all Territorial; two reserve.

The Welsh Horse Yeomanry: three battalions, all Territorial; two reserve.

This made up a total of ninety-five Welsh infantry battalions, comprising around 95,000 officers and men, plus the Welsh engineer, medical and artillery units attached to the two front-line Welsh divisions and countless other Welshmen and women in uniform serving with other services, regiments and Dominions.

Although Welsh units had taken part in some notable actions during the first sixteen months of the war, the forthcoming campaigns on the Somme, Arras, Messines and the build-up to the Third Battle of Ypres would see blood spilt more thickly than ever before, while new theatres of war would be opened or developed in Egypt, Salonika and Mesopotamia.

This book, the second in a series of three, is not intended to be an encyclopaedic record of all the Welsh units and is not intended to claim that the Welsh were the finest fighting race or that Wales won the Great War, but only to outline the heroic efforts of some of our Welsh forefathers during the epic conflict, to commemorate the actions fought by Welsh units and formations, and to highlight the major battlefields soaked with Welsh blood and sweat.

Each volume of the Welsh at War complements the others and details the story of overall Welsh involvement during the Great War.

Chapter 1

1916 The New Year Dawns

As the New Year dawned, as well as carrying out their trench initiation alongside the battalions of the 19th Division, many training schemes took place behind the lines for the newly-arrived men of the 38th (Welsh) Division. Following the introduction of gas warfare in 1915 it became necessary for the men to be instructed in the wearing and use of gas masks, so new recruits were put through gas school, while the battalion specialists received training in their allotted new professions. Bombers, machine-gunners and stretcher-bearers were all put through their paces by battle-seasoned instructors, readying the men for their first spell in the trenches without the guidance of their more experienced comrades.

Daily route marches took place, in almost continual rain, and the men were introduced to the new Mills bomb, a hand grenade designed and produced by William Mills, which replaced the previously amateur jam tins stuffed with nails and explosives. These new grenades in fact turned out to be almost as dangerous for the handler as they were for the intended victim, with many reported incidents of casualties among the men of the 38th (Welsh) Division. Private Shanahan of the 15th Welsh spoke of the dangers surrounding the handling of the Mills bomb:

A sectioned Mills hand grenade, a weapon that was to prove invaluable in trench warfare.

We were busy fusing Mills bombs, whilst older servicemen were never capable of fusing bombs. Others had not fused a bomb before and to even handle the fuse one had to be extra careful, especially in how you treated the fuse, which was a copper tube containing detonating powder. We were warned that this needed careful handling and was liable to explode merely by handling it too long before inserting it into the centre of the bomb. The bombing, when demonstrated, seemed straight forward, but when you were standing in the trench, the pin holding the lever in one position, the arm poised to throw, a sort of paralysis seemed to affect the hand which became unwilling to leave the bomb go. You were sometimes so nervous that you would be liable either to drop it at your feet or throw it only as far as the trench top. I suppose that’s why the instructors got into the next bay of the trench, to be out of danger.

The standard aimed for was that every man should throw 2 live bombs and that 128 men per battalion should be expert bombers, while 384 men should have thrown at least 10 live bombs. Due mainly to mechanical defects and sometimes to mishandling, several accidents occurred, one such killing an officer. On 12 January 1916 Lieutenant David Lyndsey Stranack Gaskell of the 16th Welsh died after being wounded during grenade practice the previous day. Gaskell was a solicitor and had worked for Thomas Mears of Great George Street, Westminster, prior to joining the Honourable Artillery Company on 10 August 1914 and was commissioned in the 16th Welsh on 20 May 1915. He is buried in St. Venant Communal Cemetery.

Lieutenant David Lyndsey Stranack Gaskell of the 16th Welsh died on 12 January 1916 after being wounded during grenade-practice the previous day.

Accidents with grenades led to the rare award of the Albert Medal to an officer of the 15th Royal Welsh Fusiliers (RWF). Second Lieutenant William Marychurch Morgan was attending a grenade instruction school at Locon when a man dropped a primed grenade. Morgan groped around in the mud for the bomb before throwing it safely away, saving several lives. Obviously a very brave man, Morgan was awarded the Military Cross later in the year. He was the son of the Reverend William Morgan, Congregational Minister at Saundersfoot and Sardis.

While grenade practice was dangerous, the troops were also finding out how dangerous the front line was as a steady stream of casualties began to be suffered. During January 1916 seventy-eight men from the division were killed while they were still in the so-called ‘Nursery Sector’, a quiet sector selected for training fresh divisions.

Breastworks in Flanders, similar to positions in which the 38th (Welsh) Division would have first served.

Rifleman James Henry John (S/1027), 11th Rifle Brigade. John was the son of James and Mary Ann John of 1 Prospect Place, Haverfordwest. He enlisted at Barry on 4 September 1914 in the Rifle Brigade and after training at Winchester was posted to the 11/Rifle Brigade, which was attached to 59 Brigade, 20th (Light) Division. On 26 July 1915 the division completed concentration in the Saint Omer area, all units having crossed to France during the preceding few days. Early trench familiarization and training took place in the Fleurbaix area. When the Battle of Loos was launched on 25 September 1915 the division fought a diversionary attack towards Fromelles. Over the winter of 1915/16, the division remained in positions south of Ypres and fought at the Battle of Mount Sorrel in June alongside the Canadian Corps. They then fought through the Somme Offensive, at the Battles of Delville Wood and Guillemont. John was killed during this period on 27 August 1916. He was 25 years old and is buried at Péronne Road Cemetery, Maricourt. (Courtesy of Philip Slade)

Meanwhile, in a letter sent home to his parents in Haverfordwest, which was published in the Western Telegraph at the beginning of 1916, James Henry John (S/1027) of 12 Church Gardens, Prendergast, who was serving in another sector with the Rifle Brigade, wrote:

The weather the last few weeks has been very miserable and the trenches are in a very bad state. It’s impossible to walk without getting knee deep in mud and water, and it is also very cold, while to make things worse our dug-out is leaking so that we find it difficult to get a dry place to rest in. Well, never mind, we’re not downhearted, and what is more we don’t intend to be. It is some consolation to know that Fritz has to put up with the same. We are working one week in the trenches with four days rest and so on. We have been served out with fur coats now, and they are also going to give us jack boots, and the sooner these come the better, as we shall then enjoy dry feet. Last week we were billeted in some empty houses in the ruins of a town about a mile behind the firing line. It was rather draughty and a bit hard, but all the same quite a luxury after the dug-outs.

Jim had been eager to get involved in the war at its outbreak and enlisted in the 11th Rifle Brigade. However, his regret at his impulsive enlistment into a non-Welsh unit can be noted further into the letter:

Our battalion has been specially mentioned in dispatches, so we really should be proud to belong to such a good old corps, though I sometimes wish that I had joined one of the Welsh regiments. But as we are out for the same thing it really does not matter much. I remember well when the recruiting officer asked me what I wished to join, I replied: ‘Anything, so long as it is the Army.’

He was, for the time being, fortunate that he had not joined the Welsh as the new army battalions were having a torrid time. The 14th Welsh ‘Swansea Pals’ had lost Lieutenant Donald Henry Devenish, a South African farmer, killed during a grenade training accident on 17 January, and then on 27 January a platoon of men from the battalion was sheltering in a dugout when a German shell crashed into the mouth of it, killing five men and injuring two. The dead men were all from the town: Private Levi Gilchrist (17753) of Morriston; Private James Lumsdaine (17756) of Port Tennant Road; Private William Edward Paddison (17741) of Swansea; Private George William Sloper (17789) of Swansea; and Private Thomas Smitham (17758) of Dyfatty Terrace.

The Gilchrist brothers, Levi and Tom, who enlisted together in the 14th Welsh. Levi was killed in his dugout on 27 January 1916 and is buried in St. Vaast Post Military Cemetery, Richebourg-l’Avoué.

Privates James Lumsdaine (17756) of Port Tennant Road and William Edward Paddison (17741) of the 14th Welsh, killed together on 27 January 1916 and are buried in St. Vaast Post Military Cemetery, Richebourg-l’Avoué.

The two North Wales battalions, the 13th and 17th RWF, were also having a hard time of it. Over two days, 19 and 20 January, the battalions lost four men apiece killed, one of whom was a student at the University of Bangor prior to enlisting. Private Robert Jervis (17869) was the son of Thomas and Eliza Jervis of Gerlan Schoolhouse, Bethesda. His father was a personal friend of Brigadier General Owen Thomas, commander of 113 Brigade, and received the following letter about his son’s death:

Private Robert Jervis (17869) of the 13th RWF, son of Thomas and Eliza Jervis of Gerlan Schoolhouse, Bethesda, Bangor.

It is with very great regret that I have to inform you of the death by accident of your son Robert, who was killed owing to the premature explosion of a bomb (hand grenade). Your son and another died shortly afterwards from serious wounds in the head. They were buried with due ceremony in the little British Cemetery nearby. I deeply regret the loss of your son, who has always been a good and steady lad, and I understand that he had just been gazetted as a second-lieutenant, and would have proceeded home in a few days to take up his new duties: this makes it all the more sad. I tender to you and your family my sincere sympathy. Your consolation is to know that your son died at his post doing his duty for his King and country just as much as though he had been killed in action.

Jervis and Private Frank Piper (33476), who had died alongside him, are buried side-by-side in Le Touret Military Cemetery, Richebourg-l’Avoué.

While the 38th (Welsh) Division was settling into trench warfare, the 2nd RWF were having a torrid time in the line at Cambrin, a sector the 38th (Welsh) Division would soon move into. The battalion had already begun suffering a stream of casualties through the Germans blowing underground mines in the sector, mostly through the attempts to consolidate the mine craters, and on 5 February the battalion was ordered to sap out to three freshly-blown craters and consolidate them by the digging of a new trench, linking them together and into the front line held by the battalion. Captain Stanway, a fierce soldier, led the party out and the work was completed by daybreak with the loss of eight men killed, Lieutenants J.M. Owen and C.R.J.R. Dolling and twenty-eight other ranks wounded. The dead men were Private Philip Davies (17014) of Hyde, Cheshire; Corporal William Grainger (8380) of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent; Private Timothy Morris (23076) of Llansantffraid, Montgomery; Corporal John Mountford (9041) of Birmingham; Private David Nekrews (17367) of Port Tennant, Swansea; Private Joseph William Parry (5287) of Rhuddlan; and Private Walter Sargant (9882) of Birmingham, all of whom are buried in Cambrin Churchyard Extension. Private William Hopkins (6410) of Pengam has no known grave, and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial.

While many men were brave and willing to fight, on 7 February 1916 Private James Grist Carr (10874) of the 2nd Welsh became the eighth Welshman of the Great War to be executed in France. Carr had been detained after deserting from the battalion, but was caught and escaped detention before being recaptured. He had no previous convictions, but because of his escape attempt he was sentenced to death and executed at Auchel on 7 February. Carr was just 21 years old and is buried in Auchel Communal Cemetery.

The grave of Private James Grist Carr (10874) of the 2nd Welsh. Carr was shot for desertion on 7 February 1916 and is buried in Auchel Communal Cemetery.

During January the 1st SWB (South Wales Borderers) moved into reserve at the village of Ferfay, about 8 miles west of Béthune. Training regimes were carried out over the coming weeks, while drafts of reinforcements joined the battalion and on 14 February they marched to Maroc in readiness to re-enter the line. The men provided working parties behind the line for two days before moving into the frontline trenches on 17 February, relieving the 2nd Munsters at Loos.

The morning of 19 February was wet and miserable, and the men were on alert after noticing a flurry of activity in the German lines. This activity was thought to have been caused by a mining party, so during the night a party of men was sent out to investigate, capturing the edge of a position known as Harrison’s Crater. Second Lieutenant Victor Charles Moore Mayne and four men were killed in the engagement and three officers were wounded. Mayne was born on 22 January 1896, the son of Colonel Charles Blair Mayne and Victoria Amelia Mayne of Camberley, Surrey. He was educated at the United Services College and the Imperial Service College before attending the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned in the 1st SWB on 11 November 1914. He is buried in Canadian Cemetery No. 2, Neuville-St. Vaast. On the following day five more men from the battalion were killed while holding on to the newly-captured position at Harrison’s Crater.

The two other Welsh battalions in the 1st Division, the 2nd Welsh and 6th Welsh, had in the meantime been kept busy constructing new trenches and defences. During one night in January 1916 the 6th Welsh dug a new support trench almost 300 metres long. The 2nd Welsh were put to work on the defences of Loos village.

Meanwhile at Ypres, following German phosgene attacks near Frezenberg on 19 December 1915, a defensive plan had been drawn up to make the line more resilient to any further attacks. On 4 February the 10th RWF had moved into a rest camp at Poperinghe, some miles behind the lines, where it received a number of reinforcements from Litherland Camp. Major Steuart Scott Binny assumed command of the battalion on the following day.

Facing the British near the village of Hollebeke on the left was Hill 60 and Zwarteleen and on the right St. Eloi. On the northern embankment of the canal, a spoil heap created when the canal was excavated and known as the Bluff gave the British front a viewpoint over the enemy. The retention of the Bluff was imperative to the British, who were determined to hold the position at all costs.

The German front line lay some 200 metres in front of the Bluff and the ground was scattered with small mine craters that had been blown at regular intervals between October 1915 and January 1916. Communication trenches ran back over the Bluff itself, while the canal cutting was steep-sided and over 100 metres wide, with the trenches on either side connected by a plank bridge.

The Germans began shelling Hooge and the Bluff on the morning of 14 February and at 5.45 pm the Germans blew three more mines, one under the Bluff, which buried a platoon of the 10th Lancashire Fusiliers, and two slightly further north underneath positions held by the 10th Sherwood Foresters. Shortly afterwards, German infantry attacked between the canal bank and the cutting. They entered and captured the front-line trenches but after fierce fighting were driven out of the support lines behind the front. However, the Bluff was now in their hands.

Lieutenant General Hew Dalrymple Fanshawe, commanding V Corps, ordered the 17th Division to recapture the Bluff and the German position known as the Bean and placed 76 Brigade, 3rd Division under their command for the operation. In response to this, the 10th RWF began moving up to the front line, reaching the trenches on 16 February. On the following day the battalion was caught up in some heavy fighting, losing two officers – Captain Bernard Digby Johns and Second Lieutenant Adrian Victor Cree – and twenty men killed. Three officers and thirty-five men were wounded.

Heavy fighting continued here for the 10th RWF over the coming days, with six men killed and six wounded on the following day. On 19 February Captain John Arthur Walker was killed along with nine of his men while moving to trenches at Gordon Terrace, near St. Eloi. Captain Walker was the only son of John and Margaret Walker of Osborne House, Llandudno. He was educated at Shrewsbury, and at the outbreak of war was at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He joined the Officer Training Corps (OTC) and was commissioned on 13 November 1914. He is buried in Reninghelst New Military Cemetery. There is a three-light stained-glass window memorial to him in St George’s Church, Llandudno and he is commemorated on the Llandudno War Memorial.

Captain Bernard Digby Johns, 10th RWF, was the only son of Mr A.C. Johns of Carrickfergus. He was educated at Hatfield Grange, Repton and Oriel College, Oxford. In September 1914 he was commissioned in the 10th RWF. He had only just returned to the battalion after a week’s leave when he was killed on 17 February 1916.

The area between the Bluff and St. Eloi had become a hotspot, with the Royal Engineers tunnelling companies busy digging beneath the German front lines in order to lay a series of explosive charges or mines in order to attempt to break the stalemate. Six of these mines would be detonated in a little over twelve months’ time.

On 2 March 76 Brigade attacked the area around the Bluff in a further attempt to recapture the position. The 10th RWF was in support of the 2nd Suffolks and suffered the loss of fourteen men killed, four officers and sixty-seven men wounded. A stretch of lost trenches was recaptured but the Bluff remained in German hands. As testimony to the state of the ground here at the time, all the men killed have no known graves and are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial. On the following day the battalion suffered even greater casualties after a shell fell on the HQ dugout and the battalion was immediately hit by a German raid. Four officers – Lieutenant Colonel Steuart Scott Binny, Major Edward Freeman, Captain (and Adjutant) William Thomas Lyons and Second Lieutenant William Hughes – and twelve men were killed. Unusually for a battalion war diary, every man killed, wounded or missing during the action was named in the diary entry.

Captain John Arthur Walker of Osborne House, Llandudno, killed at Gordon Terrace near Ypres on 19 February 1916.

The Peace Pool at Spanbroekmolen, blown during the Battle of Messines in 1917 but very similar to the craters blown at St. Eloi, several of which still survive and provide fishing facilities for the locals.

Lieutenant Colonel Steuart Scott Binny of the 10th RWF. Born in Sydney on 1 July 1871, Binny was given command of the battalion in February 1916, after a long and distinguished military career. He was killed by a shell while in his dugout on 3 March 1916 and is buried in Spoilbank Cemetery.

Major Edward Freeman, second-in-command of the 10th RWF. The son of Harold and Alice Freeman of Malvern Wells and the husband of Katherine Freeman of Gallt-Y-Beran, Pwllheli, he was killed alongside Lieutenant Colonel Binny in their dugout on 3 March 1916 and is buried in Spoilbank Cemetery.

The grave of Major Edward Freeman at Spoilbank Cemetery.

The loss of its CO and second-in-command was a major blow to the battalion; Major G.R. Crosfield of the South Lancs assumed command.

At the end of February the 38th (Welsh) Division began to march south to take over a new section of the line near the La Bassée Canal. The ground was very similar to that which the division was already accustomed to, flat and marshy; but here, below ground, lay a new terror as the Germans had been excavating tunnels beneath the British lines for several months in order to lay mines. They were also a lot more active in this sector, as the Welshmen would discover.

A view of the Brickstacks at Cuinchy, a notorious hotspot that had given the British terrible trouble during the Battle of Loos the previous year. Now it was the turn of the 38th (Welsh) Division to hold the line here.

On 1 March 1916 the 15th Welsh of 114 Brigade began its move to this new sector, with companies spaced at regular intervals as laid down by Field Service Regulations, via a route through La Couture, Locon and La Pannerie. Battalion headquarters was set up on the La Bassée Canal. By this time Brigadier General Thomas Owen Marden, CB, CMG, DSO had become commander of 114 Brigade. Marden was a seasoned warrior who had commanded the 1st Welsh since its arrival in France and his experience was vital for this New Army division. All the Welsh units in France spent the second St David’s Day of the war celebrating in the usual fashion once again: leeks, where available, were worn on their hats and units lucky enough to be out of the line sat down for celebratory dinners. Sergeant Hughes from Chirk wrote home to his parents:

We celebrated Taffy’s Day with all due ceremony. Leeks were plentiful, as all gardens in France seem to have very little else left. I think the Frenchmen thought us all mad. Where I stay there are about six or seven people living, all women, and I tried to explain to them what it was all about. They are, like most French people, very religious and were fairly shocked when I told them in my best Sunday French that it was ‘the feast of the sacred leek’! I don’t think that saint is in their calendar of saints, though it seems a fairly long one.

On the following day the 14th RWF, which was already in positions on the new section of the front, were in a position known as Gunner’s Siding, which they had taken up on the previous afternoon. German working parties out in no man’s land had been fired upon in the early morning, and a patrol from the 14th RWF had gone out under cover of darkness to leave propaganda letters near the German wire. Some intermittent machine-gun fire from the RWF broke the peace at dawn, but this prompted an angry response from the Germans who fired a trench mortar shell, making a direct hit on the entrance to Coventry Street trench opposite D Company HQ, killing five men and wounding another. All five men are buried in what is essentially a mass grave in Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy. Also killed and buried in the mass grave were two men of the 15th Cheshires who had been attached to the battalion for instruction. The 14th RWF casualties were Private Robert Dale (20847) of Bagillt; Private Thomas Burton Hughes (20765) of Cilfynydd; Corporal Thomas Robert James (21070) of Widnes; Private George Henry King (21081) of Abertridwr; and Private Gilbert Roberts (19676) of Chirk.

On 5 March 1916 a number of officers from the 38th (Welsh) Division attended a demonstration of the use of the new flame-throwers and rockets. Flame-throwers had been used by the Germans at Ypres, where they devastated the British defenders at Hooge on 30 July 1915 and caused terror among the troops. Luckily for the Welsh, they were never fated to come across this awful weapon.

At 9 pm on 8 March 1916, the 15th Welsh relieved the 16th RWF in the trenches at Grenadier Street. After a successful relief, the men of the 15th Welsh settled down for a deserved night’s sleep while designated sentries kept watch. They were rudely awoken by a terrifying noise on the following morning when a German mine was blown opposite I Sap and the Germans launched a heavy trench mortar and artillery attack on the Welsh positions. This incurred the battalion’s heaviest losses in a single day so far, with seven men killed and fifteen wounded and evacuated for treatment. The seven fatalities were all buried at Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy.

The ‘Mass Grave‘ at Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy which contains the four men of the 14th RWF who were killed by a trench mortar shell on 2 March 1916, along with two men of the 15th Cheshire Regiment who were attached to them at the time.

Among the dead was 22-year-old Private Arnold Cecil Ewart Lewis (35027). Lewis was the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Lewis of Pontycymmer, a mining town in the Garw Valley. His parents were from Saundersfoot but had moved to Pontycymmer looking for work. They both died of tuberculosis when Lewis was just 6 years old and he and his sister went to live with Bill and Ann Frost at Stammers in Saundersfoot. Bill was a carpenter and something of a local celebrity, having built his own wooden and canvas aeroplane in 1894, at least seven years before the Wright Brothers flew their own aircraft. According to an article in the Tenby and County News of 9 October 1895, it was reported that: ‘Mr William Frost, Saundersfoot, has obtained provisional protection for a new flying machine, invented by him, and is supplying designs to secure a patent.’ Local legend has it that Bill did indeed fly his invention for at least ten seconds at some time in 1894, and so today Bill Frost is regarded in many circles as the first man to have ever flown an aeroplane. Lewis is buried alongside his fallen colleagues at Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy and is commemorated on the Saundersfoot War Memorial outside St. Issell’s Church.

Private Arnold Cecil Ewart Lewis (35027), 15th Welsh, of Saundersfoot, killed by the firing of a German mine on 9 March 1916. (David Harries)

That was not the last action of the day, however, as at 7.30 am another mine was blown between K and T Sap, and a larger mine was blown at 2.30 pm at the Duck’s Bill, north of Neuve Chapelle. Fortunately no further casualties were inflicted on the battalion with these explosions, and the rest of the day passed quietly after the solemn burial of their seven comrades. However, the Duck’s Bill would see further action before too long.

Mining was proving to be a real problem. On 14 March a party of men from the 5th SWB were at work in an underground pump house near the Duck’s Bill when the Germans detonated another mine, destroying half the Duck’s Bill Salient and bringing the roof of the mine down on the two men inside, burying them underground: Private Thomas Jones (14141) of Cynwyl Elfed, and Private Francis Charles Bennett (18098) of Pontardawe. Captain Croft quickly assembled a party of men to fill the gap left in their defences and five more men fell during the dash across no man’s land under heavy fire. The two men killed in the mine gallery still lie underneath the now peaceful fields and are commemorated on the Loos Memorial. The other five men were Lance Sergeant John Bowen (18302) of Bryncoch, Sergeant Owen Connolly (13293), Private Harry John Hall (17986) of Stroud, Sergeant Charles Howe (18284) of Grangetown and Private William Skelton (14773) of Newport, all of whom are buried in Pont-du-Hem Military Cemetery, La Gorgue.

On the same day, the fourth of thirteen Welsh international rugby players to fall during the war was killed. Sergeant Louis Augustus Phillips (PS/5457) was born at Newport on 24 February 1878, the son of Charles and Rose Phillips. He played at scrum half for Newport and played throughout the Triple Crown-winning year of 1900, winning his fourth and last cap the following season before suffering a serious knee injury. In 1907 and 1912 he was Welsh Amateur Golfing Champion. Phillips enlisted in the 10th Royal Fusiliers at the outbreak of war. He was killed in action at Cambrin on 14 March 1916 and is buried in Cambrin Churchyard Extension.

Cambrin Churchyard Extension.

Back on the home front, London was twelve months into suffering its first blitz at the hands of the dreaded Zeppelins. These lighter-than-air craft flew at such great altitudes that existing designs of aircraft could not reach them and anti-aircraft batteries sited around the capital seemed unable to cause them any damage. However, all that changed late in the evening of 31 March 1916 when the first Zeppelin, L15, was shot down over London by crews of the Royal Artillery. The aircraft sustained damage to two gas cells and lost height before coming down in the sea, some 15 miles off Margate. Several crews claimed this first victory over the skies of London so the Lord Mayor, Sir Charles Wakefield, had a number of gold medals struck and awarded to the crews involved. Among them was a young gunner from Roath, Cardiff: James Henry Thompson (104).

Thompson had worked as a machinist for John Bland & Co. in Cardiff prior to enlisting into the Glamorgan Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery on 11 June 1912. On 5 August 1914 he was embodied and was posted to Woolwich before joining No. 10 AA Battery. Following his part in the downing of L15, Thompson suffered several spells in hospital before being posted to France with the 221st Anti-Aircraft Section, RGA. He survived the war but died of influenza at No. 35 General Hospital, Calais on 29 November 1918 aged 24. He